I posted this here last week. Then I was asked to take it down, by a poet who thought that the last two lines of the original piece were too similar to words she had written in a published poem. (Those lines included mention of a year and my age.) So I did remove my post. But now that I think about it, I’m putting it back up, without the last two lines. Because this is my memory, slightly fictionalized, and I like it. So here it is… again.
I wrote this in one of the weekly writing circles that I offer; our theme that week was Kitchens.
SEE ALSO:
http://lostpaper.blogspot.com/2019/02/kitchen-stories-short-shorts-on-theme.html
Many years ago I lived in London, in a bed-sitter not far from Hampstead Heath. It was a small room with a narrow bed, an over-stuffed chair, and a large clothes cabinet that tilted slightly to the left. There was a bathroom down the hall, and I had access to the back garden, but there was no kitchen — just an electric kettle for boiling water. I drank a lot of tea. I was a Bronx girl doing my best to appear English. Most evenings, on my way home from my job as a library assistant, I’d stop and buy a small bunch of anemones from a woman who called me “Love.” Then I’d pick up a spinach tart for supper, or some bread and cheese. As often as possible I’d eat out with friends, in one cheap restaurant or another. Sometimes a kind co-worker invited me to her flat for a home-cooked meal. I never asked anyone to visit me in my room. Except once. A friend was visiting from the States, spending a week in a posh West End hotel. We went together to museums and parks, saw a play, heard a concert. It seemed only right that I would have her over for a meal. I boiled water in the kettle and made us tea. I picked up Cornish pasties from the local pub. For dessert I made a little concoction with plain yogurt, a handful of cashews, and a few currants. My friend was polite. “Lovely, lovely,” she said, “everything is so lovely.” She was also trying to be English. Later, after she returned to America, she sent me a blue aerogram. “Get the hell out of that room,” she wrote. “Find someplace with a kitchen. Grow up already.” I crumpled the thin blue paper and tossed it in the waste basket. I was perfectly content in my bed-sitter. I didn’t want to cook, anyway. What did I need with a kitchen?
